California State Route 56 is an approximately 9.84-mile State Highway located in the city of San Diego. California State Route 56 begins at Interstate 5 in the San Diego neighborhood of Carmel Valley and ends Interstate 15 in the neighborhood of Rancho Peñasquitos. The constructed portion of California State Route 56 has been complete since 2004 and is known as the Ted Williams Freeway. California State Route 56 has an unconstructed segment east of Interstate 15 to California State Route 67.
Part 1; the history of California State Route 56
What was to become California State Route 56 was added to the State Highway System by 1959 Legislative Chapter 1062 as Legislative Route Number 278 (LRN 278). LRN 278 as originally adopted was part of the Freeways & Expressways System. The original definition of LRN 278 was as follows:
"LRN 2 (US Route 101/Interstate 5) north of La Jolla to LRN 198 (California State Route 67)"
As part of the 1964 State Highway Renumbering the Legislative Route Numbers were dropped and reassigned with Sign Route numbers. LRN 278 was subsequently reassigned as California State Route 56. The planned California State Route 56 appears for the first time on the 1964 Division of Highways Map.
The May/June 1965 California Highways & Public Works announced the alignment adoption of the entire planned 17 miles of California State Route 56 between Interstate 5 and California State Route 67. The entire alignment of California State Route 56 was adopted by the California Highway Commision during their March/April Meetings.
The construction of California State Route 56 was contested by environmental challenges through much of the 1980s and early 1990s. The first segment of California State Route 56 to break ground was from Black Mountain Road to Interstate 15 on July 25, 1991 (Wikipedia citation #26 San Diego Evening Tribune). The Black Mountain Road-Interstate 15 segment of California State Route 56 would open during early 1993 (Wikipedia citations #27 and #28). The entirety of California State Route 56 would be named the Ted Williams Freeway by 1993 Assembly Concurrent Resolution Number 21, Chapter 74.
Following additional environmental challenges construction of California State Route 56 west of Black Mountain Road to Interstate 5 near Del Mar would break ground October 21, 1999 (Wikipedia citation #46 The San Diego Tribune). California State Route 56 would be built as a cooperative project between San Diego and Caltrans. San Diego constructed the portion of California State Route 56 west of Black Mountain Road to Carmel Mountain Road. Caltrans would construct the portion of California State Route 56 from Carmel Mountain Road towards Carmel Creek Road and Interstate 5. The gap in California State Route 56 between Interstate 5 and Interstate 15 was completed on July 19, 2004 (Wikipedia citation #66 San Diego Union-Tribune).
California State Route 56 can be seen completed from Interstate 5 east to Interstate 15 on the 2005 Caltrans Map.
Presently there is no plans to construct California State Route 56 east from Interstate 15 to California State Route 67. Caltrans identified no traversable routing for California State Route 56 east of Interstate 15 on a 2013 report. San Diego County Route S4 following Poway Road between Interstate 15 and California State Route 67 acts the functional connector route in the planned eastern corridor of California State Route 56.
Part 2; Roadwaywiz on California State Route 56
During 2021 Dan Murphy of Roadwaywiz featured a real-time drive along California State Route 56 eastbound from Interstate 5 to Interstate 15.
Not sure if you noticed, but one of those CA Highways images you posted shows what may have been adopted as the Highway 65 freeway alignment through Woodlake.
Yeah I’ll have to return to that nugget at some point. That’s one of the few references I’ve seen to any formal alignment adoption in the gap portion of CA 65.
A couple years back I was in Metro Detroit, against my better judgement I decided on a ruins hunt in the City. Why am I featuring a city of 673,000 approximate residents on a Ghost Town Tuesday? The reason is two fold; back in 1950 the City of Detroit had an approximate population of 1,850,000 residents at the height of the Domestic Automotive Industry. A common definition of a "ghost town" is either an abandoned place or a place that has lost the vast majority of it's population. With a almost 63.6% population decline the City of Detroit would certainly meet the criteria of a place that has lost most of it's population. The second reason is simply that Detroit is the City I was born in and the truth is that I don't have many photos from when it wasn't a civic corpse. For whatever reason the day I picked to go to downtown Detroit had to be one of the most gloomy late summer days I've ever seen in Michigan. The rain was coming down pretty hard ...
This past weekend I spent some time in Cajon Pass traversing the many historic road alignments. Cajon Pass is located in San Bernardino County, California along the San Andreas Fault. Cajon Pass serves the boundary line between the Mojave Desert, the San Gabriel Mountains, San Bernardino Mountains and San Bernardino Valley. Cajon Pass is historically one of the most traveled transportation corridors in American California and presently is served by four rail lines, Interstate 15 and California State Route 138. While Cajon Pass is known mostly for carrying US Route 66 it has carried numerous other signed highways that have had a significant impact on regional and national road travel. While this is my best attempt to compile everything from the best sources I could find into one single transportation history blog regarding road travel in Cajon Pass I suspect as time goes on this article will be frequently updated. If you have any information that you ...
Western California State Route 168 is entirely located in Fresno County and is linked historically to the Tollhouse Road corridor. Tollhouse Road is one of the oldest highways in the Sierra Nevada range of Fresno County. The corridor presently begins in at Clovis Avenue in downtown Clovis and extends northeast to Huntington Lake. In 1866 the Woods Brothers established mining claims on Pine Ridge. In 1867 Fresno County would grant the brothers a toll franchise to construct a roadway to the desirable logging areas atop Pine Ridge and near Dinkey Creek. The Woods would establish a tollhouse at the start of their franchise road and lumber mill. The lumber mill attracted settlers which led to the establishment of the mountain town of Tollhouse. Fresno County would purchase the Tollhouse Road in 1878 and make it a public highway. The county would remove the tolls and incorporate the corridor into the existing county road network. Prior to the establishment of Clovis in 1...
Comments